Day 10: Goodbye Munich, Hello Prague!!

Woke up early in the morning so that we could set off for our 5 hour drive to Prague..
Edgar's room... the 4 of us Singaporean + Edgar + Alvis managed to squeeze into this room.. the 4 of us slept on the floor while Edgar and ALvis share the bed...

The common kitchen.. which is shared by 2 other ppl in separate room..

The French restaurant which Edgar is working in at nite.. its just below his apartment.. In Sunday almost every shop in Munich is closed.. even supermarkets..

Our luggages..

We drove to the Munich market to get some breakfast.. haha but we were tempted by the sight of pork knuckles... n its only 3+ Euro!!.. ahh must eat again.. wah i will die young if i live here.. pork knuckles n beer everyday..




We even shot a video of us eating the pork knuckle..its so crunchy that u could hear the crunch.. Videos could be found in the sidebar of this blog...
The layer of fat in the skin.. bo chap!! just eat!!

No more liao..


We tallied up the number of pork knuckles we ate during the few days we r in Munich.. i topped the list with 3 and a half pork knuckles!! .. the half is becos i m sharing the pork knuckle with SC on the drive to prague from munich..

German - Czech checkpoint...


The cars in front of us were allowed to pass thru very quickly i tink becos of Czech citizens or regular visitors.. but ours took a long time to process.. the Czech immigration officer seem to have never seen a Singaporean passport.. finally after 15min or so.. our passport were stamped n we were allowed thru..

Money changers (very high commission charged!!) but bo bian.. we have to buy a Czech highway sticker thingy to paste on our windscreen..

Toilets at the checkpoint.. 0.30 Euro which is abt 60 cents Sing for peeing!! luckily one of the door is unlocked.. so we got in to settle our business haha


Prague (Praha in Czech) is divided into 10 or more districts.. Central Praha is located in Prague 1.. but becos its divided into so many zones, driving is super difficult there.. lots of one way street, so once we took a wrong turn, thats it.. have to find another way back cos we cant U-turn.. Czech road signs made our journey worst.. after driving for an hour or so in Prague n not getting to Prague 1 which is where we wanna go, we stopped by a petrol station to buy a Prague Map n asked for directions.. finally after another 20 min drive we were able to reach it.. we found some secluded place to illegal park our car.. n we walked to the city centre..

Along the Vltava river, we walked to Stare Mesto, the old town..



Nice sights.. Prague castle in the background..


Birds..

Crystals and Dolls that could be stacked together.. - Czech speciality goods..


This is nice.. the sunset with airplanes flying off, creating white streams..

SC with the Czech tram

Market place in Stare Mesto


We walked around town for a bit.. taking in the sights of Prague.. we passed by this long limoseuine.. 200 Girls per nite!! i tink this car is some advertisement for some cabaret show in Prague..


We went around looking for cheap places to eat in for dinner... "Lived like a King in Prague" ?!?!? BULLSHIT!! the prices r so damn high in the city.. maybe its too commercialised by all the tourism around..
Finally we settled at this restaurant.. pretty reasonable prices..


i tried the Old Czech Special.. supposedly Czech food.. abt 6 Singapore dollars... it was TERRIBLE.. the worst food i had so far in my tour.. the meat wasnt very good.. the rice dumplings tasted much worse .. little or no taste at all..



SC ordered the ostrich meat with bread toasts.. altho rather small serving.. but it was SUPERB!! abt 7+ Sing dollars..


We ordered some soup as well..


The restaurant..

haha look at the dog on the wall.. it seems to have a fifth leg..

the toilets in this restaurant is pretty confusing.. how m i supposed to tell which one is for male or female..

A closer look at the doors..

The left one is for guys n the right one is for gals.. Dom suggested that if u remove the 2 "wings" (which r the one with jagged edges) for the symbol on the door, u will see smt which looks very familiar to the male organ.. haha.. likewise, for the symbol on the right door.. haha
The atmosphere in the restaurant with its low lighting.. makes it rather nice to take some photos.. SC experimenting with the drug addict look in Black n White.. no no he isnt smoking.. he just rolled up some toothpicks..

Our Clown n Bard hostel in Prague 3 district..
haha this look like a concentration camp... haha there r even beds in the attic up there..



yah thats all for today!!

Day 9: Neuschwanstein Castle (Sucks!!), Dachau Concentration Camps, Sinful Dinner again!!

We drove off from Edgar's place towards Neuschwanstein Castle.. it took us abt 2 hrs..

This is King Ludwig's magnificent and most famous castle, built in the neo-late romanesque style. With its turrets and mock-medievalism, its interior styles ranging from Byzantine through Romanesque to Gothic its a real fairy-tale fantasy come true. It was built between 1869 and 1886 for the Bavarian King Ludwig. A splendid and imaginative "fairy-tale castle" high above the Alpsee lake with the Alps towering above it.Only about a third of the building was actually completed. The 15 rooms you see on the tour show astonishing craftsmanship and richness of detail. Woodcarving in Ludwig's bedroom took 14 carpenters 4 1/2 years to complete. Wagner's operas feature everywhere in the form of murals.

This is wat its supposed to look like.. very nice rite?


However when we reached, it was super cloudy.. this is wat we see instead..

Spot the castle among all the fog..


We were informed that its a 40 minute walk up to the castle as it is situated on top of a mountain... n a horse carriage ride is also available but it costs 5 Euros to go up n 2.50 Euros to get down.. rather ex.. there is also a shuttle bus service which costs 1.80 euro to go up n 1 euro to come down.. a return ticket is 2.60 euro..

The picture below shows the Hohenschwangau Castle.. again money money money.. it costs quite a lot to go as well.. also it takes 20 min supposedly by foot to get up there.. Thus we decided to concentrate on the Neuschwanstein castle


Remember to buy your tickets before going up to the castle or else u will feel like a stupid idiot, climbing all the way up n then having to come down to buy tickets n go up again.. haha.. nah we didnt do that..


Ppl queuing up for the horse carriage..


We realised we still have an hour plus before our tour starts.. when u buy the ticket, its for a guided tour n u have to arrive on time or else yer ticket will be invalid.. we did our calculations.. it takes abt 40 min to walk all the way according to the brochure.. maybe there is a way to bash our way up the route with our car.. haha being just too lazy to climb up, we decided to drive up following a route that we tink we take us to Marien bridge, where accoridng to the brochure, it takes 15 min to walk to the castle.. we drove on up the Alps mountain pass. there was a sort of road just good enuff for a car to drive on.. we even thot of possibly making money out of this, from marien bridge, we could pick up ppl who wanna go down the mountain for abt 2 euros n then we drive ppl from below up to the bridge for abt 3 euros.. still much cheaper than the stupid horse carriages.. haha

we drove for quite some time in the woods..at times the roads r really narrow.. we start to wonder if we took the rite route.. we passed by smt like a checkpoint with the barrier raised.. we thot that was the entry for the shuttle bus, so we assume we r on the rite path.. n since there is no bus today due to snow n frost on the road, we wont risk being sandwiched between 2 buses, one incoming n one outgoing.. haha we drove on, feeling rather confident.. finally, we got out of the mountains onto ground level.. we felt strange, aint we supposed to end up on some bridge or somewhere higher?.. haha we saw someone driving by n asked him for directions.. to my surprise, the guy spoke rather good English, i was expecting some problems communicating with a German considering the number of Germans we spoke to that dont speak English.. we were told to go back up the mountain.. i guess we miss a turn or smt..

haha so we drove back up the mountain.. back along the same route,looking out for any signposts to turn to the bridge.. but there seems to be none.. we saw the checkpoint like thingy in the distance, we noe we r going on the route straight back to where we started.. sigh i guess we have to walk up.. There was a rather large sign near the checkpoint that says "Welcome to Österreich", oh my god, the checkpoint we encountered was an actual border checkpoint n we had crossed into Austria from Germany unknowningly n we had spoken to an Austrian guy just now.. this is one of the famous mountain pass that ppl used to cross the Alps few hundred years ago.. luckily there wasnt any soldier manning the border or we would have been shot for driving straight pass it w/o stopping... haha i guess being in the EU, Austria n Germany had opened up the border to each other..

well too bad, we drove back n illegally parked in the car park only for the hotel residents.. parking elsewhere was pretty ex n its free here.. we proceeded to climb the slope to the castle.. we have abt 30 minutes left b4 our tour starts..

Horses carriages climbing the steep slope up..


As we walked up, we overtook several horse carriages.. the horse carriages r pretty slow... i guess the horses r tired, going up n down with carriage load of ppl (abt 8-10 ppl per carriage) u can see the horse foaming at their mouth.. n shitting along the road up.. along the road up to the castle, horse shit n horse saliva are everywhere.. pretty disgusting..

One of the poor horses hard at work..


As we go further, visibility decreases due to the thick fog..



Finally after abt 20 min walk, we managed to reach the castle, taking less than half the time mentioned in the brochure.. good exercise though..
still very foggy...





damn stupid castle.. so foggy.. only guided tours allowed.. souvenoir shops everywhere ready to rip off tourists n most irritating of all, no photography or video filming allowed.. for photography, i understand why, maybe the flash will damaged the stuff inside.. but for video filming, i dont understand why not.. i guess the main reason for not allowing both is that ppl will take pictures n videos to show other ppl n they worry tourist attendance here will drop.. its a way too commercialised place.. the guide for the guided tour spoke a heavily accented English.. smt cant make out wat the hell she is toking abt.. the castle wasnt very impressive.. i guess after being to Versailles palace, nothing can compare liao.. basically this castle was built for a king Ludwig who is pretty obsessed with swans.. some rooms have lots of swans for deco.. esp one room where according to teh guide, one could spot hundreds of swans or swan like things in the furniture and wall drawings n door knobs, cupboard designs.. basically everything.. the interior of the castle was a dissapointment, the guide was pretty bad.. yah the whole castle sucks.. i tink the only nice part is if u view it from the outside.. but today is way too foggy to appreciate the beauty.. best place to see the exterior of the castle is from Marien bridge which we tried to go but failed...

A model of the castle, thats all the pic i took of the castle inside...





Very dissapointed wih this castle, we walked back down to our car, smelling horse shit n saliva along the way... haha.. we decided to try driving up the road to MArien Bridge to take a look of teh castle from there.. this time we took the correct route.. realising how much we have gone away from the main route.. haha however, when we reached the bridge, it was closed.. due to bad weather.. arrrghh..

we decided to drive back to Munich, Dachau.. There is a concentration camp located in Dachau n since dom had not had the chance to see a concentration camp yet.. so we drove over there loh..

some black n white shots of the camp taken by SC..



Pretty much the same conditions the inmates undergo in Sachchenhausen, the camp SC, LL n me went to earlier in Berlin



A depressing path between rows of trees.. by the trees stood many inmate barracks.. all demolished now..


The parade square..


After this, we went back to Munich to look for some place we can have dinner..
Along the way ,we pass by this major demonstrations.. they seem to want someone freed from prison.. dont understand, dont care n stomach growling, we proceeded to the restaurant where we had dinner in teh first nite..




I ordered beer and PORK KNUCKLES.. they look way too good to not eat.. haha


The 3 of us guys ordered Pork Knuckles while LL ordered some other food..


i cleared my plate, leaving nothing left while SC was conciously trying to get rid of the fat udnerneath the skin.. this is wat is left on his plate.. all the fats.. n he says this is only half of wat he cleared.. the other half of all the fat, he ate it.. oh my god, doesnt that means i ate this much of fat times 2.. haha..
Beer count so far for me: 2 Litres.. in less than 36 hours.. haha


really really sinful meal.. we proceeded back home after dinner.. Edgar n Alvis rented a movie, the Mexican.. which i slept from the beginning.. too tired.. i woke up during the period when teh credits were rolling.. haha

Edgar gave LL this scarf.. he was working for this advertising firm n he often gets free stuff like mugs n scarf from the companies that they r working with.. this scarf is from O2 the mobile phone company...